■ STAFF REPORT The annual Great Bay Scallop Search is planned for this area is from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 18. The purpose of the resource monitoring program is to document the health and status of bay scallops populations by snorkeling and looking for scallops in select areas. This is a […]

■  PROVIDED BY THE US NAVY OFFICE OF COMMUNITY OUTREACH A 2002 Lemon Bay High School graduate and Boca Grande, Florida, native is presently engaged in a critical mission for the security of the United States: deterring nuclear war. Lt. Cmdr. Kathy Paradis, a staff judge advocate, is supporting the world’s most advanced ballistic missile […]

■ BY SUE ERWIN Pam DeFouw is the new director of operations at the Wildlife Center of Venice, but she certainly is not new to the facility. DeFouw started out as a volunteer for the organization in 2011, cleaning and feeding sick, injured and orphaned wildlife. She was quickly offered a position cleaning cages at […]

■ STAFF REPORT Lee County has hired its debris-removal contractor to supplement efforts currently underway by Parks & Recreation employees to clean county beaches affected by the recent red tide fish kill. Crowder Gulf will begin Thursday morning, concentrating first along county parks and beach accesses on the Sanibel Causeway, Lynn Hall Park to Bowditch […]

■ BY CAPT. VAN HUBBARD Unfortunately, the talk of our town now is red tide and water quality/polluted local waters. For now, our local marine economy is virtually shut down. A few offshore boats are getting out into the Gulf fishing, though. This current outbreak followed our May rains. We’ve had problems with red tide […]

■ STAFF REPORT Florida’s 2018 “Back-to-School” sales tax holiday is set for August 3 to August 5 this year. Parents and students can save sales tax as follows: Clothing, footwear and certain accessories selling for $60 or less per item are exempt. “Clothing” means any article of wearing apparel, including all footwear. Bicycle helmets marketed […]